The present invention relates generally to segregating the components of a heterogeneous mixture of glue pellets and supplying only homogenous glue pellets to a bulk hot melt glue machine.
In an automobile assembly plant or a plant where automotive components are manufactured, head impact countermeasure devices are attached by bonding to a headliner substrate using adhesive. At such a plant, however, a dry mixture comprising adhesive pellets of various materials is available for producing various bonded assemblies. For example, a heterogeneous mixture of polyolefin pellets and polyamid pellets or glue pellets of one of those materials can easily be loaded into and supplied incorrectly to a bulk adhesive system that requires pellets of the other material.
It is important that one, correct adhesive be used to bond the head impact countermeasure devices to the headliner substrate. If the incorrect adhesive were used to produce this bonded attachment, the bulk system would have to be purged and cleaned out, which may require more than eight hours to complete this corrective operation. Also, use of the wrong adhesive may create a risk that the head impact countermeasure may not remain fully attached to the headliner substrate. A failure of the bonded joint may be undesirable.
A need exists in the industry for a reliable, repeatable method or device, suitable for a high volume production environment, that ensures that a homogenous supply of glue pellets of the correct material be provided to a bulk adhesive dispensing machine, whose use is compatible with the material of the pellets being supplied. Preferably the device will segregate the correct glue pellets from foreign glue pellets, which are then available for use in another glue dispensing machine.